Silver-Blue
by BellatrixLestrangey
Summary: Azula Week Day 6: Mermaid AU. Azula is spirit cursed to be a mermaid. Sokka keeps her company.


Ocean foam laps at her skin, she can taste the salt on her lips, feel water droplets dripping from her hair and trailing down her bare back. There is seaweed wrapped around her arms and adorning her hair from when she had emerged. She hasn't gotten around to picking it off yet. She smells of the ocean.

She has grown used to the feeling and to the scents, though it had been a profound adjustment to make.

For the thousandth time since acquiring them, Azula runs her hands down almost razor-like metallic scales that shimmer in hues of mostly deep blues and teals with a spot of silver here and there.

She supposes that they are rather beautiful, majestic and suitable for her. Much more suitable than the reds and golds of the Fire Nation. No, the scales reminded her of her fire, now lost to her. She likes the style of the tail well enough, the little sharper spines that jut out from the sides of them and the tattered-yet perfectly symmetrical-look of the fins. But she misses her legs.

She thinks it cruel that a former firebender has been tethered to the ocean.

She watches the sky shift from a deep indigo to the gold, pinks, and oranges of sunrise. With the sun now in view, Azula tries, again, to firebend. But no flames burst to life in her palm. Not even a spark.

She supposes that a sea creature has no business working with fire. That doesn't make her feel any less bleak over the situation.

Azula can hear footsteps, the soft crunch of sandgrains. She tosses herself in a backwards arch back beneath the surface. Her hair fans out soothingly around her as she descends. Perhaps one day she will make conversation. These days, she fancy the notion of people discovering what has become of her.

It will take a lot of explaining and she isn't sure that she truly can.

.oOo.

Sokka meanders about the beach, stooping down to pick up a particularly smooth grey-black rock. He tosses it up and down as she trails along the shoreline. The ocean relaxes him after a long week of fishing and hunting and, these days, political meetings that numb is brain to its core.

It seems as though today will be his only truly free day day within a two week period. And, by Raava, he needs it with the first week and two days having passed.

A sudden splash draws his attention, but whatever it is, has disappeared from view. He shrugs and takes a seat where the waves lap at the sand. He lets them lick and tickle his feet as he watches soft pastels and vibrant golds appear in the sky. The sun casts a twinkling gold glimmer amid the gentle waves. With the hues of the sky reflected in the glittering waves, he feels as though he is looking into a dream.

He continues tossing the stone from one hand to the other. Just to create a ripple on the surface, he throws the stone. It hits the water and causes the desired ripples, but it bounces back.

No. It had been thrown back.

A figure arises, a relatively small silhouette against the golden backdrop. A halo of light accents her. He can't make out her expression with such lighting nor such distance. But he can't imagine that she is pleased to have been hit by a rock, however small.

At first she seems to edge closer, but then she retreats beneath the waves.

"No, wait!" He calls, reaching out. Without thinking he darts in her direction. He nearly trips over the water; if only he could bend it out of his way. Having thought it over even less, he leaps up and tackles the figure.

She gives a small oof and scowls at him. "What the hell are you doing!?"

Sokka blushes and rubs the back of his head. "Sorry, I… I just...I didn't want you to leave." It's a dumb excuse and he knows it. She doesn't reply, perhaps his actions had been so brazenly rude, it leaves her without words. And in her silence he notices two doesn't know which to address first.

"Azula?" He asks, because he thinks that it is a much easier way to start.

Her frown only deepens and her eyes narrow.

He hasn't seen those eyes since she'd gone missing a year or so prior.

"You're alive!"

She rolls her eyes, "you don't say…"

He can't help but stare downwards, his glance fixated on shiny blue and teal scales. His cheeks color again when he realizes that he has been staring and that she is well aware of it. Every eloquently, he sputters, "how?"

.oOo.

Azula shifts uncomfortably.

She isn't about to tell the oaf that she had done something rather foolish. Part of her wants to, hoping that maybe he'd have an idea as to how to fix things. But she can't imagine him not laughing. Even a complete dullard like him knows that spirit vines aren't to be tampered with. By extension, taking the lazy route and experimenting with spirit seaweed, simply because it is closer, is even more foolheartedly. "It's a long story." She mumbles instead. "It doesn't matter anyways."

Sokka's gives her a sympathetic look. "Maybe I can…"

"Help?" She cuts him off and shakes her head. "I don't think that this," she sweeps a hand over the elegant scales of her tail, "can be undone."

He takes her hand, "there was this one time that Aang found this spirit-monster thing. He did some crazy Avatar stuff and it turned back into a panda."

Azula blinks. "That is the worst summary of an event that I have ever heard."

Sokka flushes again. "Well, I'm just trying to say that curses and stuff can be lifted."

She doesn't think that curse is the right term though. She stares at her hands.

"Are there any other mermaids?" Sokka asks.

Azula shakes her head, "haven't found any." She must admit that she is a little lonely. It is why she hasn't told him to run along. Frankly, it is nice to have some company, even if the company is of the Water Tribe peasant variety.

"It's pretty, if that makes you feel any better." He comments with a gesture towards her mermaid tail.

It doesn't but she half-heartedly thanks him anyhow.

"You know who likes mermaids!?"

"Katara." Azula guesses.

"Aang, actually." Sokka laughs.

"TyLee does too." Azula recalls. "She probably won't like them as much if she finds out that I'm one of them."

"Or…" he speaks more optimistically, "maybe that'll help you rebuild a friendship?"

Azula shrugs, she doesn't share his optimism.

Sokka frowns at her lack of enthusiasm. "Uh...well...I guess I'll leave you alone then."

She lets him stand before pulling at his arm again, "no, wait!" She doesn't know when she'll come by another person, much less a familiar face.

He sits back down. "Yeah?"

"Will you…" she hesitates, not entirely used to asking for company. "Will you come back tomorrow.

Sokka gives a cheerful smile. "Sure, I can bring Zuko-"

"NO!" Azula snaps.

"Alright, I'll come alone." He says, thinking over his schedule. "Does sundown work?"

Azula nods, "I like sunsets."

He sits with her for a few moments longer before a few human shapes appear on the beach. "I'll be leaving now. Meet me over there." She points at an arch of rocks. "There's an obscured cove over there, it's where I usually stay."

"What if I can't find it?"

"You'll find me and then I will show you where it is." She replies.

Sokka nods, "alright. I'll see you tomorrow then."

Azula returns the nod before dropping beneath the surface once more. At least now, she won't be alone with her dreads and regrets. At least now she knows that at least one person doesn't think that she is some sort of freak. She perches herself upon the rock structure in the center over her hidden cover. For the longest time she stares at the scales and at the place on her midsection where skin transitions in to scales. Even after all of this time she still can't get used to them.

She supposes that she is going to have to because they aren't going anywhere anytime soon.


End file.
